


Desperate Measures

by poppunkpadfoot (StormVandal)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Community: HPFT, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Marauders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-09
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2020-04-23 17:19:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19155547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StormVandal/pseuds/poppunkpadfoot
Summary: The plan was as follows.Step 1: Convince everyone that he and Remus actually had been dating. Possibly for months.Step 2: Stage a breakup so dramatic that no one would dare bring their “relationship” up to either of them again.Step 3: ???Step 4: Profit.First place in down-in-flames's Faking It challenge on HPFT





	Desperate Measures

**Author's Note:**

> As usual, I owe a massive thank you to Emma (facingthenorthwind) for prodding me along and for being an amazing cobbler elf!
> 
> "#17: people keep teasing us about being a couple so we decide to fake date and fake a dramatic breakup so that everyone gets super uncomfortable and shuts up about it"

Sirius Black had a plan.

It was quite a brilliant plan, in his opinion, as most of his plans were wont to be. See, the thing was, people would _not_ stop giving him grief about Remus lately. They’d also been giving Remus grief about him. Perhaps it would be more expedient to say that they were both being given grief about, well… _them_. The two of them together, Remus and Sirius, as in RemusandSirius, as in, the two of them as an item. See, half of Gryffindor house had decided that it was very hilarious to pretend that Remus and Sirius were a couple. Going steady. Betrothed. Whatever.

It had all started like this. 

It had been a perfectly ordinary Thursday evening in the Gryffindor common room; students were sitting around doing homework, chatting with friends, playing chess, arguing about Quidditch, and so on. The Marauders were no exception - they had snagged the best seats in front of the fireplace and were doing Transfiguration homework in advance of the weekend, in order to free up as much map-making time as possible. They sat mostly in companionable silence, although one of them occasionally broke it to ask a question of the others, or to ask for something to be passed to them. 

It was during one such occasion that disaster had struck.

“Padfoot,” Remus had said, pointing at a red book on the table without looking up from his parchment, “could you pass me that book?” 

Sirius had obliged, stretching over Peter to place the book next to Remus on the couch. 

“Thanks, love,” Remus had said absentmindedly.

And all four of them had frozen. 

Sirius, for his part, had frozen in surprise. He certainly had not frozen because his heart had skipped a beat, because it hadn’t, so that was that. No, he’d just been surprised - and, by all appearances, Remus was surprised too. He’d looked up from his essay and blinked owlishly at Sirius a few times, the book forgotten next to him and his cheeks steadily reddening. 

“Er,” he’d said.

There’d been several beats of silence, wherein Remus and Sirius had just stared at each other, while James and Peter looked between the two with obvious amusement on their faces. It had been James, in the end, who’d spoken first. 

“Aw,” he’d said lightly. “You two make an adorable couple.” 

And thus, the nightmare began. 

It’d been almost two weeks, and not only did James and Peter keep bringing it up, but it had spread through the rest of Gryffindor house. Sirius and Remus could scarcely be seen in each other’s presence without _someone_ erupting into coos and awws. People kept remarking on what an adorable couple they were (which had been annoying when James had done it the first time, let alone the fifth), referring to Remus as his boyfriend at every possible opportunity, and so on and so forth. There wasn’t any _malice_ in it, at least as far as Sirius could tell - James, at the very least, was just gleeful that he was getting to be the teaser rather than the teasee for a little while (he’d been growing progressively soppier over Lily Evans, and the rest of the Marauders had been making fun of him accordingly), and honestly, at this point, Sirius suspected that half the House was being completely and entirely sincere, and had no idea that the whole thing was just an _extremely annoying_ joke.

Adding to Sirius’s annoyance was the fact that this _whole thing_ was Remus’s fault, and yet he was being _utterly_ unhelpful in terms of getting everyone to shut the hell up. Whenever he was directly confronted about Sirius, he would just turn bright red and stammer something about Southerners and how love was “just a placeholder word”. This, shockingly, didn’t deter anybody. He was mildly more defensive behind closed doors with James and Peter - he told James to “shut the hell up, James, you sound like a twat” the third time James asked when their anniversary was so that he could buy them flowers - but that wasn’t very effective either. Ergo, it was on Sirius to clean the whole mess up.

Plan A hadn’t worked out; he’d surreptitiously leaked one of James’s more flowery poems about Lily to the rest of the House. However, this had backfired - people had teased James for less than a day before they’d taken to asking Sirius whether he wrote poetry for Remus. It had also irritated James into upping the ante. (Honestly, in Sirius’s opinion, this was all very inappropriate behaviour for the Head of House to be partaking in. What was he going to do, though, report James to himself?) 

It was time for Plan B.

Plan B, while brilliant, was not something that Sirius really wanted to resort to, mostly because it was rather involved and it was going to require involvement from Remus, who was still in the “turning red and stammering” stage of dealing with the issue. However, it was the only real plan Sirius had besides just letting it fizzle out, which was really not an acceptable option. The plan would work, if they could pull it off - James wasn’t harping on Remus’s slip up because he thought the two of them were genuinely a couple, or even that it would be funny if they were. Rather, he had simply latched onto this chance to mock Remus’s northern-ness (??), and Sirius was mere collateral damage. But if they could convince James that they _were_ a real couple, he would probably drop it immediately, and would likely be completely mortified. In terms of the rest of the house, they would just have to make them all feel too awkward to continue the teasing, which would be easy enough.

So, the plan was as follows. 

Step 1: Convince everyone that he and Remus actually have been dating. Possibly for months.  
Step 2: Stage a breakup so dramatic that no one would dare bring their “relationship” up to either of them again.  
Step 3: ???  
Step 4: Profit. 

He just needed to get Remus onboard.

** 

It was a little more difficult than expected to get Remus to agree to the plan; the very first thing he said when Sirius finished his pitch was “...You want us to do _what?_ ”, and Sirius had to go over the details again before Remus admitted the plan had some potential. It probably didn’t help that Sirius had caught him in the middle of writing a Potions essay, which meant he’d broken his concentration and therefore he was irritable and unfocused. He also had a smear of ink on his nose and his hair was all mussed up; this was not at all relevant to the plan, but Sirius noticed it anyway, for some reason. It was not that he thought that Remus looked adorable, because that would be a very strange thing for him to think, and he therefore certainly wasn’t thinking it. 

Finally, Remus agreed to give it a shot, although he seemed more reluctant than was ideal. He insisted, however, that Sirius allow him to finish his essay before they did any planning, so Sirius left him to it. 

When Remus joined him in their dorm room that evening, Sirius had sketched out rules of engagement for the operation. 

“The long and short of it,” he explained as Remus looked over the parchment, “is that we have to do whatever it takes to convince everyone. The breakup part will be no good if we don’t. So if whatever we’re doing isn’t working, we need to go further. Okay?” 

“That’s a little bit broad, Padfoot,” Remus said slowly. “I mean… surely you have limits?”

“... No?” Sirius said. “I trust you.”

“I trust you too, but - I mean, you want to actually fool Prongs with this. I don’t even know that’s possible.” 

“Well that’s a quitter’s attitude if I’ve ever heard one.”

“It’s just… we live in a dorm room with him, you don’t think he’ll be suspicious that he’s never… you know… heard anything odd?”

Sirius stared at him for a moment, puzzled, before it dawned on him, and he (much to his horror) felt himself turn red. 

“I’m waiting ‘til marriage?” he joked half-heartedly. 

Remus blinked at him. 

“Okay, no, listen, I mean… silencing charms exist, right? If we have to we can just… you know… get in the same bed and cast one, and then do homework in there or something. Right? I mean, he’s not going to - to ask if he can watch, or -”

“Jesus, Padfoot.” 

Sirius couldn’t tell if Remus was amused or irritated, so he snapped his mouth closed and tried to look contrite. He still wasn’t quite sure who this Jesus person was, but Remus always said that when Sirius was really pushing it.

“We can make it work, is the point,” he said. 

Remus shook his head despairingly, but he (mercifully) didn’t argue. And so it was agreed - Plan B was to be undertaken, effective immediately. 

Sirius wasn’t normally so nervous when launching his brilliant schemes, but he put it down to the high stakes.

***

The next morning, Remus and Sirius dawdled a little getting ready in the morning, letting James and Peter go ahead of them to the Great Hall. When they were alone in the room, they regarded each other in silence for a moment, before they reached for each other’s hands.

“We’ve got this,” said Sirius. 

Remus, whose hands were surprisingly soft and actually very pleasant to hold, didn’t say anything, just looked very resigned. Without another word, the two of them descended down the stairs into the Common Room. 

The effect once they entered was pretty well immediate; while no one said anything, a few people openly gaped at them as they made their way to the door. Sirius gave Remus a wary glance out of the corner of his eye - it was entirely possible he’d given them away already, by turning green and looking nauseated or going all tense or something - but to his surprise, Remus actually looked very relaxed. 

No one said anything to them, though they were sure that as soon as the portrait swung shut behind them, they’d be the talk of the room. They didn’t see anyone else notice anything until they sat next to James and Peter. Once they were sitting down, the handholding was no longer obvious, so Sirius gave Remus a kiss on the cheek and then reached across James for the kippers.

James had been saying something to Pete about the transfiguration homework but fell silent as soon as Sirius brushed his lips against Remus’s cheek. Sirius managed to go a whole thirty seconds without looking up to see his reaction, too busy placing each individual kipper on his plate at an agonisingly slow pace. When he finally did look up, though, the payoff was immediate. James’s eyes were comically wide, and he was openly gawping at them both. It was a good start, but they obviously needed to take it further. 

Still, though, it was really hard not to laugh. 

“Morning, Prongs,” said Remus pleasantly before Sirius had a chance to speak, and to Sirius added, “Pass me the brown sauce, love?” 

Interestingly, this made James relax quite a lot. 

“Ah,” he said, almost smugly. “Right, I see. You’re just leaning into it now, eh? Think that’ll make me get bored? Well, joke’s on you two -”

“Jamie,” said Remus mildly, “what on earth are you on about?”

Sirius, sensing a good opportunity, shifted closer on the bench and snaked his arm around Remus’s waist. James’s eyes shot towards Sirius’s hand on Remus’s hip, and he started to look nervous again. 

“I guess the cat’s out of the bag, eh, Moony,” said Sirius, with a long-suffering sigh.

“Cat?” James said sharply. “Bag?”

“Yeah,” said Peter helplessly, “what cat? What bag?”

Remus - who, to Sirius’s honest shock, was selling the hell out of this so far - gave the two of them a casual shrug. “Padfoot and I have been dating for months,” he said, as though he was telling them that it was a little cloudy outside. “I’m honestly surprised neither of you noticed until now. We haven’t been doing a very good job hiding it.”

James dropped his cutlery onto his plate with a clatter. 

“You’re having me on,” he said, with a note of genuine desperation in his voice. 

“Why would we do that?” Remus said, infusing just enough exasperation to be convincing without overselling it. 

Sirius held his breath. Surely it couldn’t be this easy - but it really seemed like they’d convinced James in under ten minutes.

But no such luck. James squinted between the two of them for a while before smirking and sitting back in his seat. 

“Nah,” he said smugly. “I don’t buy it. You two are up to something.” 

Drat.

“Whatever you say, Prongs,” Sirius said nonchalantly, and set about eating his breakfast one-handed.

***

The rest of their day was spent trying to convince James, which they had mutually agreed was priority number one. They held hands in the hallways between classes, passed obscenely saccharine notes in class which they made no attempts to hide from either James or Peter, and stared dreamily at each other at any opportunity. Remus also played with Sirius’s hair quite a lot, which he had to admit he was genuinely a fan of. James, at first, was unswayed - almost making a show of how unswayed he was - but as the day went on, he started to get nervous. 

“Okay,” he said at dinner, with a slight edge of hysteria in his voice, watching Sirius wipe some gravy from the corner of Remus’s mouth with his napkin, “you guys can cut it out any time now.”

“Honestly, James, this is starting to get offensive,” said Remus mildly. “I don’t know what to tell you, Sirius and I are really happy together. If you have a problem with that -”

“I don’t have a problem with anything, it’s just that you two are full of shit! I mean, come on, I literally live with you both, I’m not _completely_ unobservant, and I’ve never seen you do any of this stuff before!”

Peter, sitting beside James, nodded his head in agreement, looking at them accusatorially. Luckily, since Remus had pointed out this potential flaw in their plan the day before, Sirius had been thinking up ways to deflect, and was able to jump in quickly.

“I mean… we were hiding it, a little,” he said. “Weren’t sure how you both would react, you know. But ever since Remus slipped up the other week, you’ve both just been so supportive, so we figured it was okay to go public. Unless… you’ve just been taking the piss this entire time?” 

To his delight, a look of horror passed across James’s face; he honestly looked like he might throw up. He pushed his plate away from him on the table and stared at them, his eyes darting between them wildly as though he was going to be able to find some ultimate proof that they were just pulling some spectacular prank. Sirius barely resisted the urge to fidget around under his scrutiny - it was a little nerve-wracking, to be honest, because if James didn’t fall for this story soon, or if he figured out what was going on, then all they’d have accomplished would be to give him a _ton_ of extra material.

Remus seemed to sense his unease, because he spoke up before James could pull together a retort.

“Frankly, James, I don’t give a shit at this point about what you think,” he said firmly. “If you _do_ have some sort of problem, tell someone who cares.”

He turned away with finality, and then - _then_ \- before Sirius could even register what was about to happen - Remus leaned in and _kissed him right on the mouth_.

 _Oh_.

That Sirius managed to kiss him back within a few seconds, rather than freezing or flailing out of shock, was nothing less than a testament to his amazing pranking skills. Blood rushing in his ears, he placed one hand on Remus’s hip and the other at the nape of his neck, subconsciously pulling him a little closer. He was so caught up in the fact that he and Remus were _suddenly snogging, what_ , that he missed entirely the choked noise James made, and the fact that there was scattered applause from onlookers around the table. It didn’t even bother him that Remus’s lips were chapped, or that his mouth tasted like gravy; both things he would expect to be put off by, let alone the very fact of _kissing Remus in the first place_.

It wasn’t until Peter forcefully cleared his throat that the two of them broke apart - mostly because that was Peter’s classic “someone’s coming, act natural” signal, so it was possible McGonagall was approaching and was about to give them a million years of detention for being wildly inappropriate at the dinner table. McGonagall, however, was nowhere in sight; it seemed Peter had just had enough of watching them snog shamelessly.

“How long has this been going on?” he demanded.

Sirius went to answer, but neither his mouth nor his vocal chords seemed to want to function, and it was rather difficult to come up with a convincing answer in the first place when his mind was so blank. Remus had _kissed him_ . On the _mouth._ He knew, logically, that they’d agreed to essentially no limits, but he hadn’t been expecting to be _kissed on the mouth_ in under 24 hours. No wonder there were butterflies going completely wild in his stomach - he hadn’t even had time to prepare, to plan what he was going to do! Honestly, it was a miracle that he’d sold that kiss at all.

Luckily, while Sirius was remembering how to function, Remus once again stepped up to the plate. “Since September,” he said, “but we were writing to each other all summer.”

That wasn’t even entirely untrue - they had sent each other more owls than usual over the summer. Entirely friendly, though. Nothing like what Remus was implying. 

Peter opened his mouth to respond to Remus, but before he could get any words out, he was interrupted by James. “Sirius,” he said in a strangled voice, “can I have a word with you outside?” 

“‘Course,” Sirius replied cheerily, his voice sounding very foreign to his own still-freaking-out brain. 

He followed James out of the dining hall into the foyer, and watched as James started pacing back and forth in front of the big oak doors. He looked quite distressed, now that Sirius was slightly ( _slightly_ ) less dazed and could actually take things in. His eyes were wide, and he kept tugging his fingers through his hair, making it look even more out of control than usual. 

“For real?” James finally asked, sounding like he very much hoped Sirius was going to say no.

“For real,” Sirius confirmed, sounding far giddier than he’d intended to. (That fucking kiss had really messed with his head. Damn it.)

James looked grey, almost green, and Sirius would have felt bad about it except, of course, for the fact that James had been giving him shit for an entire fortnight.

“I’m so sorry,” he said, looking at his hands as if he had killed someone. “I… I thought you were kidding.” There was still a ‘please tell me you are kidding, tell me any time now, please’ note to his voice, and Sirius relished it. No way in hell was he giving in. “Obviously I love and support you both?” His voice turned up at the end, almost hopeful.

“Good,” Sirius said, slapping James on the back. “For a while there we were worried you were actually a homophobic dickhead.”

James did the impossible and paled even further. “No, I promise, I’d never — I swear — fuck.”

“You’d never make fun of us for two straight weeks for calling each other pet names?” Sirius shot back, trying hard to sound upset instead of like he was about to burst out laughing, which he was.

“It was just so Northern!” James said desperately. “I didn’t mean anything by it, I’m - I’m really sorry.”

Sirius hummed, forcing his face into as solemn an expression as he could muster. “Really, it’s Remus you should be apologizing to. He’s been much more torn up about it all than I have.”

“Right, I - of course I will. Of course.”

At this point, James honestly looked as though he was going to start crying, and as much fun as Sirius was having watching him fall all over himself, he wasn’t _that_ cruel. So he clapped him on the back again and gave him a smile, which James tentatively returned. 

“It’s alright, Prongs,” he said kindly. “Everyone makes mistakes. Just apologize to Remus, yeah?”

“Yes,” said James, nodding vigorously. “I will. Today.”

“Cool.” Merlin, this plan was the best. “Now let’s go back and eat, yeah? I bet the pudding’s out by now, I’m dying for some cake.”

***

With James and Peter convinced, it was quite easy to get the rest of Gryffindor house onboard with their ruse. The news that Sirius Black and Remus Lupin were actually dating for real spread fast, and by the end of the day they were getting random congratulations and apologies. However, there was one issue - which was that half the house had believed they were genuinely dating in the first place. Therefore, the random cooing and such had, if anything, increased. This problem was definitely not going to be resolved without Step 2. They couldn’t jump straight into Step 2, though - it would be far too sudden, and therefore unconvincing.

This was what Sirius was thinking as he climbed the stairs to the Marauders’ dorm room. Remus was already up there, and James had stopped Peter at the bottom of the staircase, insisting that the two of them would hang out in the Common Room for a while so that he and Remus could have some privacy. (Honestly, his earnestness was almost disturbing.) 

He fully expected that, upon entering their dorm room, he would find Remus up to something distinctly Moony-like, such as reading a book or getting a head start on an essay or prodding at a glitchy section of the Map. What he was not expecting was to find Remus sitting on Sirius’s bed, staring into space.

“Er… are you alright?” he asked.

Remus jumped at the sound. “Oh, um, yeah, sorry. Did you — were you saying something?” 

“No,” Sirius frowned. “What’s up?”

“Oh, uh, nothing,” Remus said. “Sorry about — at dinner. I couldn’t warn you beforehand.”

“What?” said Sirius in slight disbelief. “Are you joking? It was brilliant! James was beside himself!”

Remus pulled a face. “He was absolutely shitting himself trying to apologise to me before, saying that you said I was offended.” 

“Well, yeah, as you would be if this were not a scheme. I mean, think about if it were for real — he’d be a massive dickhead for doing this.” 

“Yeah.”

They looked at each other in silence for a moment before Remus piped up again. 

“So… you aren’t upset that I kissed you?”

“Moony,” Sirius sighed. “Did we not say ‘no limits’?”

“Yes, but -”

“But nothing. Our agreement didn’t say anything about no kissing. I’ve told you, I’ll do whatever it takes to sell this. Okay?”

“Okay,” Remus conceded, but he still looked oddly deflated.

Before Sirius had time to puzzle it out, though, he heard James’s voice carrying up the stairs. Clearly, he and Peter had decided they’d given him and Remus quite enough private time. Sirius, though, was definitely not finished getting his revenge. Therefore, he did the most obvious thing he could think to do - which is to say, he flung himself onto the bed next to Remus, grabbed his face, and kissed him with gusto.

The noise James made when he opened the door was more than enough of a reward for that particular stunt.

***

In the end, Sirius and Remus decided that a week would be plenty of time for them to fake date. This was already, at least according to the timeline Remus had given James and Peter, the longest relationship Sirius had ever been in. If anyone questioned the timing, they could always claim that their relationship had been strained by all the attention, which was not only plausible, but which would also make everyone feel even worse, and was therefore a perfect reason. 

Sirius could have gone longer, though, if he had to, because fake-dating Remus was not entirely unpleasant. In fact, it wasn’t really unpleasant at all. It wasn’t that Sirius necessarily _wanted_ to kiss Remus and hold his hand all the time and all the rest of it; however, since he had to do those things, it helped that Remus was actually, as it turned out, a very good kisser, and that his hands were so soft, and that he always wore jumpers that made him cozy to cuddle with. 

These were all perfectly normal things to think about your friends in a situation like this one, in Sirius’s opinion.

But in any case, he didn’t have to go for longer, because they had decided on one week. At the end of the week, they’d initiate Step 2. They’d had a brief conversation about how they were going to break up - in the Great Hall? In the Common Room? Who would start the argument? Would there be yelling? Tears? - and they’d also talked a little about what would be said (Sirius mentioning Remus’s furry little problem was obviously off the table; Remus mentioning inbreeding was not). They hadn’t made any concrete decisions yet, but overall, Sirius was confident - they were going to nail this breakup.

So… they spent the whole week carrying out Step 1 as thoroughly as they possibly could, and if Sirius kept getting butterflies every time he laid eyes on Remus, it was because he was very nervous that they were going to get caught out before the weekend.

On Friday, while James and Peter were playing chess in the Common Room, Sirius and Remus sat down to formally construct their big fight. They had already settled on staging it in the Common Room the following day, but they needed to really solidify the details.

They spread out together on Remus’s bed with a roll of parchment and got to work. It was quickly decided that, for the sake of realism, Sirius should set the whole thing in motion - probably with something relatively innocuous, like “Remus, I don’t think this is working out”, because if they came in too hot, it’d be harder to sell. Remus would respond with his trademark dry wit, then Sirius with some sharp barb, and it would all build into a crescendo of drama until they both stalked off in opposite directions. 

Remus tapped his chin lightly with the quill, looking at Sirius pensively. “Do you think I should get in a parting shot about how you’ve been cheating on me with Nearly-Headless Nick? Just to make the whole thing extra dramatic?”

“Merlin, no,” Sirius replied immediately. “That’ll just start even more outlandish rumours, I’m not dealing with that. Besides, I deserve the last word, since this is all your fault in the first place. Remember?”

Remus conceded, and re-read the parchment a few times before passing it to Sirius. “In that case, I think we’re all set.”

Sirius absolutely trusted Remus’s judgement, but he still wanted to read over the plan for himself, in case he had any last minute brainwaves. So, he rolled onto his back and held the parchment up in front of his face.

_P: Remus, I think we should break up._  
_M: (shocked) What? Why?_  
_P: You’re boring, you read too many books, and you don’t pay enough attention to me._  
_M: Just because I’m not swooning over you endlessly like a member of your fanclub -_  
_P: It’s not my fault people think I’m handsome! I mean, you can’t blame me for the fact that people have EYES and can SEE._  
_M: They’re not looking closely enough, if they were they’d notice the decades of inbreeding._  
_P: Hey, you’re not such a looker yourself, Lupin! Eat some dessert sometime, you look like a twig._  
_M: You’re an arsehole, I’m glad you’re breaking up with me. I would’ve done it myself within another week._  
_P: Good!_  
_M: Good!_  
_P: Fine!_  
_M: Fine!_  
_[Scene]  
_ _*Note: This is a guide, not a script - we are both free to improvise, as long as we steer clear of Banned Topics._

Sirius’s very first instinct upon glancing at the parchment was to tease Remus for making these notes in full sentences with correct grammar; as he actually read it, though, his heart sank horribly in his chest, and any thought of teasing Remus was pushed from his mind completely.

It… it wasn’t that he didn’t know it was pretend or whatever, it just… upset him, for reasons he couldn’t even explain, and which he honestly didn’t even want to try to suss out, because panic was starting to rise in his throat -

“Hey - are you alright?” Remus asked, his eyebrows drawing together in concern.

“What - yeah,” Sirius managed. “Yeah, of course, why wouldn’t I be?”

“Are you sure…? You look kind of… is there something wrong with the plan? Because we can make changes -”

“No,” Sirius said, and ignored how it felt like he was lying. “The plan is perfect.”

***

The plan hovered ominously on the edges of Sirius’s mind for the rest of the day.

He barely ate anything at dinner, just pushed his food listlessly around his plate. He could feel Remus’s worried gaze on him, but he couldn’t even meet his eyes. James and Peter also noticed his odd behaviour, and made concerned inquiries, but he managed to brush them off.

This would probably help with Step 2, he told himself unenthusiastically, but that didn’t make him feel any better.

After dinner, the four Marauders retired to their dorm to work on the Map. Sirius, though, had no useful input to give, seeing as his brain was far too busy Feeling Terrible and Having Confusing Emotions and Not Thinking About Step 2 to be concerned with spelling out trick staircases.

He was honestly relieved when the others decided to call it a night. He would get some sleep and feel better in the morning, and he and Remus would execute Step 2 flawlessly, and no one would ever bring up their ‘relationship’ ever again, which was obviously what he wanted.

Except that he couldn’t get to sleep.

It made no sense. There was no reason for him to be awake - he’d been plenty tired during Transfiguration that afternoon, almost falling asleep at his desk. Yet there he was, tossing and turning, staring up at the canopy, feeling… miserable. 

The plan was perfect! It was! But something just didn’t feel right about it. For one thing, it was mean to call Remus boring! Remus wasn’t boring! Remus was clever and funny and always figured out the best ways to pull pranks without getting in trouble. Granted, being at least a little bit mean to Remus was a vital part of Step 2, and granted, Sirius had _probably_ said worse things to Remus before, but… he still kept imagining the hurt look that he assumed would come over Remus’s face after being called boring, and it made something twinge unpleasantly in his chest. And, it occurred to him suddenly, and they couldn’t just go back to normal right after this, either - which they had not planned for in the slightest! They’d have to stop talking for a while, and act all angry with each other, and all of that sounded absolutely terrible. Sirius _wasn’t_ angry with Remus, and the last thing he wanted to do was stop talking to him - in fact, he’d been having quite a good time over the last week, while they’d been spending so much extra time together; it was going to be very difficult to go from being all cuddly with him to keeping his distance - holding his hand and kissing him and all the other things that had turned out to actually be rather enjoyable -

...Oh.

_Oh._

Sirius shot upright as he was hit full-force with the realization that actually, _actually_ , he _really really did not want_ to go through with Step 2 - not only because of the awkwardness it would create, but because he didn’t want things to go back to normal either. He didn’t _want_ to stop kissing Remus or holding his hand or passing him notes in class or any of it! And he’d been getting butterflies all week because he _liked Remus_ , not because he was nervous about the plan! He was an _idiot_ who was _in love with Remus Lupin_ and was now going to have to _publicly break up with him_ in less than 24 hours.

Shit. 

His first instinct was to simply flop onto his stomach and scream into his pillow, but he resisted the urge. Instead, he sat there panicking for a few moments before swinging his legs over the side of his bed and padding quietly to Remus’s bed on the other side of the room.

“Moony?” he said quietly through the curtains, after a moment’s hesitation. “Are you awake?”

To his surprise, the curtains were pulled back within seconds to reveal Remus blinking up at him. He was sitting cross-legged on top of his covers - so it really looked like he’d made no attempt to go to sleep - and Sirius couldn’t help but notice that he’d been chewing at his cuticles.

“Padfoot?” he whispered. “What are you doing up?”

“I could ask you the same question,” Sirius pointed out. “Can I come in?”

Remus shrugged and nodded, and Sirius quickly settled in across from him.

Sitting across from Remus in the still, quiet darkness was comforting in a way it could only be with a true friend. They sat together not saying anything for what felt like minutes, but probably wasn’t - Sirius had no idea what Remus was thinking about, but he was trying not to hyperventilate about the fact that the emotions he was feeling were extremely Not Platonic. 

“Um,” he said at last. “I - uh. You know tomorrow, right, I…”

Spit it out, Black, for god’s sake. He couldn’t see Remus across from him, with the closed curtains blocking out the moonlight, but he could hear him breathing, patiently waiting for Sirius to dig himself out of whatever ridiculous stammering mess he’d got himself into.

“I don’t think we should do it tomorrow?” he said at last, the statement turning up at the end.

“Oh, good,” Remus sighed, sounding bizarrely… relieved? Sirius frowned a little, but before he could ask about it, Remus continued in a rush. “I mean - er, I was thinking that too. It’s too soon, right? I don’t know if we can pass off all the attention as some kind of game-changer. I mean, people were being supportive and everything, right? So maybe it doesn’t make sense that we would be that bothered?”

“Right,” said Sirius slowly. “So… it’s all about the plan?”

“Yeah, of course.” Remus laughed nervously. “What else would it be about?”

“Well, it’s just… you’re sounding a little bit flustered, Moony.”

It was getting harder and harder to keep the hope that was bubbling up in his chest at bay, because Remus definitely sounded nervous, and that made no sense unless… unless he maybe felt the same way? Which seemed too good to be true, except that, now that Sirius thought about it, Remus really didn’t have that much reason to go along with this plan in the first place - or even to get annoyed by James’s nonsense, which just wasn’t the sort of thing that would normally get to him - let alone to play along so enthusiastically (i.e. to do so much snogging).

“I am not,” Remus shot back unconvincingly.

Sirius really could not be bothered arguing the point. His heart was racing, his palms were sweating - the whole nine yards in terms of cliché bullshit - and all he wanted to do was kiss Remus’s face off right that second. However, he restrained himself, because that would be extremely rude. It would probably be better to just… tell Remus about his feelings.

Maybe it was the fact that he couldn’t see Remus that made him braver than he usually would be. Maybe it was that he hadn’t slept very well, or maybe it was just that he was panicking a little. Whatever it was, Sirius found himself opening his mouth and speaking before he’d really thought it through.

“Well, I- I was thinking maybe we shouldn’t do it at all? Step 2, I mean?”

There was a deeply ominous silence from the other side of the bed.

“The thing is,” Sirius said, a little too fast, because he knew if Remus interrupted him he’d never say it and probably would have to move to France and go to Beauxbatons and his French was way too shit for that, “that I kind of actually really like you, for real, and I would really like to date you for real, and also I would really like to kiss you right now, if that’s okay?”

“... For real?” Remus said, very quietly, after an agonizingly long pause.

Sirius, trying to push down his mounting panic, huffed. “I said ‘for real’ twice, Moony, I don’t know how else I can - mmph!”

The rest of his sentence was cut off by Remus kissing him so enthusiastically that he toppled backwards onto the bed. There was a moment wherein Sirius was in shock, and they were both flailing around a little bit, and it was ever so slightly awkward - but _then_ , they were kissing _for real_ , not as part of some elaborate revenge scheme, and it was worth every single minute of the teasing and the plotting and James’s nonsense.

“You know,” said Remus, when they pulled apart to breathe, “James is going to give us hell if he finds out we were faking it.”

“I don’t care,” Sirius replied. “Let him,” and he kissed Remus again.


End file.
